Subtitle:
For the Love of Running
Prologue
Posted
on March 7th, 2023
By
Olivia Baker
Why do you choose to run? Throughout my entire running
career, I've been asked this question frequently in one way or another. As
someone who participates in a sport that is often used as punishment for other
sports and has willingly done so to the point of racing professionally, I think
people expect me to have some profoundly enlightening answer—as though I've
discovered something about running that most have not. On the contrary, I have
a few simple reasons for running that I think many would relate to.
To begin with, I started
running at 8 years old mostly because my friends were doing it. I grew up
playing soccer. When several of my friends from soccer, including my best
friend, decided to give running a try, I was happy to run as well and continue
hanging out with my friends in the social setting of sports. I've continued to run through high school,
college, and as a professional because I discovered a God-given talent for
racing and an enjoyment of running. I'm motivated
to get up and go to practice every day because I want to be the best in the
world some day before this career is over. A love of the sport and greater running
community, enjoyment of the physical act of running, and desire to glorify God
with this talent for as long as it's His will have kept me running all these
years and are reasons that I will continue to run long after this professional
career is over.
That being said, I picked Choosing to Run for the 15th installment of Runners Who
Read because I love hearing the stories of what brought people to the running
community and motivates them to run every day, especially those who are putting
in over a hundred miles per week. I also, like many of you, am fan of Des
Linden. Those of you who follow her on social media may also know and love her
brand of witty humor combined with straight shooting truth and a willingness to
speak on any topic. In addition to reading about her background in running and
her historic 2018 Boston Marathon win, I am also interested in her perspective
on the state of the sport today and the direction it is headed in the future.
Discussion
Questions:
1. What
was your first experience with the running community like? What has continued
to bring you back?
2. What
are you most looking forward to about reading this book?
Subtitle:
Worth
the Effort
Chapters 1-4
Posted
on April 13th, 2023
By
Olivia Baker
I
remembered Frank's faith in me and Walt's long-game philosophy that effort was
always worthwhile even when the outcome wasn't predictable. -
Des Linden, Choosing to Run (pg#26)
In marathoning, as in life, we are rarely met with
completely predictable outcomes. You can diligently study for a test and still encounter
questions for which you feel unprepared. Worse yet, your classmate who studied
less may fare better simply by the luck of the draw of questions that day. The
test results won't necessarily show it, but you very well may be better off in
the long run for having put in the extra study time. You can spend an hour in
an escape room and whether or not your team successfully escapes, there is
still fun to be had in the problem-solving. You can spend months preparing to race
on a cool, crisp Boston day only to be met with historically awful rainy, cold,
and windy conditions that cause a sudden change of plans, as was the case at
the 2018 Boston Marathon.
Such is the situation Des Linden found herself in during
the early miles of her Boston Marathon winning run and also in the early part
of her professional running career as described in the early chapters of Choosing to Run. As a runner who started
her marathon career straight out of college at age 23, she figured out pretty
quickly that she would need to play the long game. Unlike the top distance
stars coming out of her class, she didn't have agents rushing to sign her or
multiple offers on the table. With one opportunity from the Hanson's Original
Distance Project on a bonus-only contract, she would have to build slowly from
the bottom with no clear mountain top in sight. So too was the view from mile
zero through mile 12 of that fateful Boston Marathon. Unsure if she would even
be able to finish the race before it began, she hung out at the back of the
pack putting forth the effort just to stay in the race in such horrible
conditions as others withdrew. As we know, such effort led to an improbable
victory on that given day, when she could have easily given up.
Sometimes that unpredictable outcome is not what you
may have hoped for, other times it can be a blessing in disguise. Either way, if
a journey was worth enough to pursue all the way to the outcome, then there was
value in the effort put forth along the way.
Discussion
Questions:
1. Where
are some places that you find value in running, walking, or jogging at times
when you aren't getting the end results you'd hoped for?
2. Today's
quote from the book continues to look at the idea of there being value in
effort regardless of the outcome. "I didn't want to be haunted years down the
line by what-ifs, and the only way to avoid that was to chase down an answer,
whether I liked that answer or not." (pg# 26) If you knew that there was a
chance that discovering such an answer may disappoint you or end in failure, is
it still worth the try to avoid the "what-ifs" as Linden says?
Subtitle:
Right
Foot, Left Foot, Repeat
Chapters 4-8
Posted
on April 20th, 2023
By
Olivia Baker
What is the appropriate unit to measure progress
towards success? Well, I guess that depends on how you define success, but
perhaps the smallest unit that many could agree upon and seem to use quite
frequently is a proverbial "(baby) step in the right direction." For a writer
or an artist, that might be a sentence or a brushstroke on a blank piece of
paper. A new language learner might memorize a single new vocabulary word in
their chosen new language. In the case of a marathon runner, it may literally
be a couple of steps as it was for Des Linden in the 9 months leading up to her
2018 Boston Marathon win.
For nearly a year, as Linden outlines through the
middle part of Choosing to Run, she
struggled with symptoms of debilitating fatigue and weakness as she lived with
undiagnosed and worsening hypothyroidism. During times when she thought that
she might just be tired from marathon training, she ended up slowly declining
into worse and worse health. Easy runs became difficult, she couldn't keep
herself awake on moderate length car drives, and she was sleeping through most
of the day as her organs were shutting down and muscles were wasting away unbeknownst
to her. Fortunately, after a visit to an urgent care center, she was able to
quickly get the right medications before the situation became dire. Still, with
less than a year to prepare for Boston, the road to recovery was long. Progress
no longer meant nailing a hard tempo run, rather it meant getting out of bed
and moving. Right foot, left foot, repeat
she says to herself several times.
Nonetheless, progress is progress, no matter how small.
Eventually, those small steps turned into bigger ones which added to and then
multiplied her improvement. Every step mattered and every one of them paid off
when she ultimately got back to winning form. Whether you are taking leaps and
bounds or baby steps, any movement in the right direction adds up over time. The
most important thing is to keep going.
Discussion
Questions:
1. What
proverbial "steps in the right direction" are you taking toward a goal today
(big or small)?
Subtitle: Choosing
to Run
Chapters 9-13, Epilogue
Posted
on April 27th, 2023
By
Olivia Baker
During my first two years of college at Stanford, I
had a teammate named Aisling Cuffe (yes that Aisling Cuffe, some of you who
follow elite women's marathoning may have heard of her) who insisted on enjoying the process and having
fun with every race. Whether we were lining up for a dual meet with our cross
town rivals, Cal Berkley, or toeing the line at the NCAA Championships, Aisling
always found an opportunity to remind me to have fun before the gun went off.
In the midst of the high stakes and crippling nerves that come in the lead-up
to a race it could be easy to lose sight of the enjoyment of competition. I
appreciated that Aisling always knew how to find ways to make those moments fun
for the people around her and embodied that joy herself when she lined up. Though
we don't cross paths at races much anymore, (she tends to compete more on the
roads while I find myself in more track races) I walk to the line every race
thinking of her leaning over the fence before the start saying "Hey OB, don't
forget to have fun," and remember to relish the race to come.
This is the memory that came to mind as I read the
final chapters of Choosing to Run by Des
Linden. As she recovered and learned to manage her hypothyroidism, Linden
focused on putting the intrinsic pleasure of running front and center (pg#165)
and it improved not only her physical well-being, but her professional
well-being also as it pertained to rediscovering her fitness. Gone were the
days that she would stress over hitting exact mileage and splits in a workout.
Rather, she would focus on being consistent in her effort in workouts and make
more space to appreciate the simple act of running on her easy days. In doing
so she not only recaptured a good amount of fitness in time to win the 2018
Boston Marathon, but catapulted herself to new heights in running. In October
of 2020 she hosted Destober, running the mileage of the day of the month every
day (for a total of 496 miles that month), pushing herself to her furthest ever
weekly mileage and enjoying that unknown territory every step of the way. In
April of 2021, she would break the 50k world record remarking on the way "I'm
hurting in a way that I haven't felt in forever, since the marathon was new and
unpredictable for me. I'm uncertain how this will unfold. And I love it."
(pg#244)
Sometimes simply consistently finding joy in the
process goes a long way towards achieving a given goal both in running and in
life. So this week, let's all take some time to be more intentional about finding
reasons to enjoy our next run, walk, or jog.
Discussion
Questions:
1. Where
do you find joy in running, walking, or jogging?
2. This
week's quote comes from Des Linden as she gets back into a regular rhythm of
running after getting on her hypothyroidism medication. "The grind meant something positive to me: a challenge to embrace
repetition and approach it creatively. It annoyed me when I heard 'the grind'
used in a pejorative way. Sure, it could be tedious, but it was a choice. Go
off and do something else if you hate it." (pg# 163). Do you agree with her
perspective on what "the grind" should be? What are some things in your life
that you consider to be a grind?